What the Jan. 6 transcripts say so far: Trump’s chief of staff burned files; Congresswoman brought QAnon to White House

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol has been releasing a near-daily dribble of interview transcripts this week, shedding light on avenues of inquiry big and small during its lengthy investigation.

They include assertions by a White House aide that former president Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows burned documents in his office fireplace, former Fox host Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speaking-fee demands, and a white nationalist pleading the Fifth Amendment in response to a question about whether women should have the right to vote.

The House committee’s investigation report — which runs more than 800 pages — concluded Trump was to blame for the rioting that interrupted and sought to upend the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The committee recommended the Department of Justice consider criminal charges against Trump.

“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former president Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the committee report said. “None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.”

That report was based on the committee’s 18-month investigation and interviews of roughly 1,000 people. As of midday Wednesday, transcripts of more than 100 of those interviews had been released. Here’s the latest:

Trump White House chief of staff burned documents in fireplace after discussing election opposition, top aide testified

Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 committee that her boss, Mark Meadows, burned documents in his office fireplace about a dozen times in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Hutchinson testified May 17 that Meadows, then-White House chief of staff, burned documents about once a week after the fireplace was turned on for the winter.

That included at least twice after meeting with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who the committee has said was directly involved in an allegedly illegal conspiracy to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

“I know maybe three or four times — between two and four times, he had Mr. Perry in his office right before,” Hutchinson told the committee. She stressed, however, that she didn’t know what documents were burned or if they were copies of original documents that needed to be saved under the Presidential Records Act.

— Josh Meyer

White nationalist Nick Fuentes pleads 5th on his views

Nick Fuentes, the 24-year-old live streamer who espouses white supremacist views and dined in November at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and Ye — the rapper formerly known as Kanye West — invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to dozens of questions, including:

— “Do you believe women should have the right to vote?”

— “Should gay people have full and equal protection under the laws of the United States?”

— “Do you believe in the superiority of the White race?”

— “Do you oppose mixed marriage?”

— Is America worse off as the percentage of White people in the country decreases?”

— “Do you believe White people are under attack in this country?”

— Erin Mansfield

Marjorie Taylor Greene boasted to Trump about QAnon followers headed to Jan. 6 rally, aide says

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene brought up QAnon several times in December 2020 with then-President Donald Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 committee.

“I remember Mark having a few conversations, too, about QAnon,” she said, and that Trump aide Peter Navarro also was pushing the group’s conspiracy theories in White House meetings. QAnon followers pushed the false narrative that the so-called Deep State of government bureaucrats stole the election from Trump.

“And at one point I had sarcastically said, ‘Oh, is this from your QAnon friends, Peter?’ Because Peter would talk to me frequently about his QAnon friends,” Hutchinson testified.

Greene, who had just been elected for the first time, also told Trump during a Jan. 4, 2021 rally in Georgia about how QAnon was heading to Washington to attend his “Stop the Steal” rally two days later.

“Ms. Greene came up and began talking to us about QAnon and QAnon going to the rally, and she had a lot of constituents that are QAnon, and they’ll all be there,” Hutchinson said. “And she was showing him pictures of them travelling up to Washington, D.C., for the rally on the 6th.”

— Josh Meyer

Kimberly Guilfoyle wouldn’t appear at Jan. 6 rally for free

Former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée and national finance chair for Trump’s re-election bid, was not going to appear at a Jan. 6 rally for free.

“You will pay us that’s the deal so don’t even think about it,” she texted former Trump campaign deputy Caroline Wren, who had raised money for the rally near the White House.

“You will send the funds as promised,” Guilfoyle wrote, according to texts described by investigators in transcripts released Tuesday.

Wren, however, had donors to answer to, and the whole situation was frustrating. “That is not fair I can’t pay you’ll for a speaking engagement you aren’t speaking at and are refusing to allow me to publicize,” she responded.

Guilfoyle then says the two are “done for life,” evoking pleas from Wren that she is the one who “set all of this up for you and is constantly looking out for you” but she can’t justify to the rally’s major donor, Publix supermarket heiress Julie Fancelli, paying Guilfoyle “$60,000 to speak at an event and then you DONT speak.”

“Bull,” Guilfoyle replied. And besides, she added, “don is speaking.”

In the end, Guilfoyle got the $60,000, according to the committee, and she made a two-and-a-half-minute speech at the rally.

— Donovan Slack

Rally organizer: ‘Stop the Steal’ activists ‘grifting’ off the movement

Kylie Jane Kremer, the executive director of Women for America First, which hosted the Jan. 6, 2021 rally on the Ellipse by the White House, testified about her opinion of others in the Stop the Steal movement.

Kremer testified that she has known Ali Alexander, another activist who associated himself with the phrase Stop the Steal, for more than a decade. She said she had concerns about Alexander because he was “setting up to accept donations through his personal accounts,” and “we wanted nothing to do with that.”

Kremer also spoke generally of people in the Stop the Steal movement who “had really shown their true colours, that they’re very much about themselves, and about making a dollar and basically grifting off the movement.”

— Erin Mansfield

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